Now that Aperture supports image masters outside of the library (referenced masters), it is possible to store these large files on removable media. Accessing referenced masters on entire drives, such as networked volumes and Firewire drives this is straight forward: just mount the volume.

However, for write-only media such as DVDs and CDs there is a hiccup that will require a trip to Aperture's Referenced File Manager. I will burn a CD with some images to illustrate. Here are my images in the Grid view:

They are currently all inside my library (managed), so to put them on a CD I have to make them referenced with the Relocate Masters. First I put a blank CD in the drive first so it shows up on the desktop and I will be able to specify it as a destination for my masters:

I select all of my images and go to File > Relocate Masters and choose a folder scheme that stores them by date. Aperture does not split a group of files across several disks, so it is necessary to make sure that all my files fit on a single disk --easy in this case because there are only a few.

I press Relocate Masters and my files are been copied to the CD. But they are not really there yet. They are on a disk image that the Finder has created for me that mimics the CD. Here is the Finder view of this disk, all ready to burn:

So the next step is to actually burn the files onto the disk. Once I have chosen a name for this disk (Masters) and the burn is complete I have my finished disk:

Of course that's a terrible name for a disk if I were doing this for real. I'd pick something with a date in it and make sure that the disk name was unique.

But now there is a problem. If I try to do anything with the images on the CD, they are tagged to show that the master cannot be found. Not only does Aperture not have the masters in its library, but it knows that it does not know where the masters are. They are disconnected:

So where are my masters? Why can't Aperture find them? If I Iook on the CD they are definitely there:

So what has happened?

Aperture has recorded the location of the masters as being on the disk image the Finder created for me instead of on the CD I just burned. So the library references point to locations on my hard disk that no longer have the master files. Somehow I have to correct those references.

It is time to fire up the Referenced File Manager and tell Aperture where the masters really are. I'll work with just six images first, by selecting them and control-clicking:

The window that appears has two halves. The upper half shows the status of the files that are referenced. This is the "problem" half:

On the left are the volumes that the images are supposed to reside on. Clicking on a volume will bring up the selected files that were last seen on that volume on the browser in the center. Red means that they cannot be found. And on the right is a pane that details the selected image from the browser:

The lower half of the window is the "solution" half, known as Reconnect Options:

It is a standard column file browser. I can reconnect the image I have selected in the upper half to its master by using this browser and checking that the image matches. I locate the selected master image like this:

After a short delay (and a confusing one too) the Reconnect and Reconnect All buttons become enabled. If I click on Reconnect, then the status on the top half changes, since one out of five is now reconnected:

And the file name in the upper browser turns black from red. If I had to do this one at a time it would be horribly tedious. But I don't. If I select all the remaining images in the upper half, and then navigate to just one of them in the lower half, pressing Reconnect All will do exactly that and all will be reconnected with their master files:

Once repeated for all the remaining images in this project, the thumbnails look like this:

If I eject the CD, the icons change to indicate that the masters are offline, but not disconnected:

Now what if I decide that I don't want the masters on the CD any more? It may be that I have pulled this CD out of storage and want to use the images. It's way too slow to try to work with the masters this way. I simply make the images managed again by using Consolidate Masters. They are copied off the CD into the library and Aperture uses them from that location. I can pop out the CD.

But when I am done with that project I don't want the images in the library any more. I can't delete them or I will lose everything about them. I don't want to burn another CD or DVD with my masters on again -- I already have a perfectly good copy in storage.

If I try to relocate them, then it does not work:

There is a way to do it. First create a temporary folder on your desktop called Temp. Then relocate all the masters into that folder using the same naming scheme that you used on the CD or DVD. That step gets them out of the library. Next, drag that folder to the trash. Yes really. No need to empty the trash.

Select all the images in the grid view and Open up the Referenced File Manager. Select All Volumes from the list of volumes and click the Verify button. Aperture will suddenly realize that it has lost the masters and they will appear on the browser pane. Now on the lower half of the window navigate to the CD or DVD and reconnect all the images.

Once you are happy that everything is OK, empty the trash.